Earthquake – Chapter Six

"Flight 108 departing for Lansing, Michigan is now boarding."

Ren chewed her lip as she sat in the leather airport seat.  Part of her wanted to just sit there and never leave.  Was she really going back to Michigan to continue on with her life, or was she just running away from her whole life?  She had spent her entire life in Sacramento, and then she had planned to flee to an Ivy League school when she turned eighteen.  Because she was convinced her life would be perfect then.  She was the perfect student with perfect grades and now she would have an untarnished reputation.  But she hadn't gotten into Harvard, or Yale, or Princeton.  She was heartbroken, but she had been accepted to Berkeley and University of Michigan.  Since she wanted to go to an out-of-state college and be a journalist she chose Michigan.  And then she began getting C's in most of her classes.  It was something new to her, and she gave up after only one quarter and transferred to Michigan State, because she liked Michigan, and it would have been too painful for her to go back to Sacramento and live with her parents again.

"Why am I doing this to myself?" Ren said aloud.  Michigan was her home now.  Sacramento was just a place where broken dreams lay scattered over every aspect of her life.  In Sacramento she had found the rejection letters, placed neatly in her mailbox.  In Sacramento she had buried her head in her pillow and cried for a week straight, refusing to go to school.  In Sacramento she had been dumped by her boyfriends.  In Sacramento she had watched Larry Beale brag in the cafeteria about getting accepted to the Wharton School of Business at University of Pennsylvania.  An Ivy League school.  And she had called Sacramento from Michigan just a few weeks ago and received the news from Louis that Tom Gribalski had gotten an early acceptance to Oxford University in London to study physics at the oldest and best university in all of Europe.  And Sacramento had killed her parents.  Everything bad had happened in Sacramento.

"God."  Ren buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

"Excuse me, miss, are you all right?"

Ren looked up to see a gentleman placing his hand on her shoulder.

"Yeah," she said.  "I'm fine."

It was a few hours earlier.

Mrs. Dean walked in the door, carrying groceries.  Tawny quickly rose from her knees and sat down heavily on the couch.

"Honey, could you help me put these groceries away?" Mrs. Dean asked.

Tawny glared at her mother for a second and then stomped off to her room.

Louis twisted the metal ring on his finger.  It looked expensive, at least a few hundred dollars.

"Is she all right?" Mrs. Dean absentmindedly asked Ren as she opened the kitchen cupboard.

"Uh, yeah, she's fine," Ren replied, "I think she's just upset about Louis having to leave."

"Well, naturally," said Mrs. Dean, "but she's known about it for awhile now.  I thought we had given her time to get used to it."

Louis followed Tawny into her room.  She slammed the door shut behind him and sat down on her bed.  Then she looked up at him expectantly, her eyes shining.

"I love you so, so much," said Louis, grasping both of Tawny's hands.  "I can't believe you would do this for me."

"I don't know what it means."  Tawny shrugged.  "It was just...something I had to do.  Even if you go away, at least you have that commitment."  She smiled.  "You'll have to come back eventually."

"But I want it," Louis told her.  "I want it now.  I want to be with you forever."

"Where will you live?" Tawny asked.

"I don't know.  With Donnie or something."

"Don't give him that stress," Tawny said flatly.

Mrs. Dean tapped on Tawny's door and then stepped inside abruptly.  "Louis, your sister is waiting for you."

"Mom," Tawny pleaded, "don't do this."

"Tawny, I'm sorry, but he has to go.  You know that.  He's no longer our responsibility," Mrs. Dean reasoned.

"You're a psychiatrist!"  Tawny rose so that she was even height with her mother.  "Shouldn't you know the trauma that the loss of a family member causes on someone?  Give Louis time to grieve, for God's sake!  Don't just send him away like he's not your problem.  He is!  He's a part of me."

"Oh, don't speak to me like that, young lady," said Mrs. Dean.  "You're eighteen years old.  You have no idea what it's like to be in love."

"Maybe I don't," Tawny whispered, "but this is the closest I've ever gotten and it's the closest I'll ever let myself get if I can't have Louis.  I'll never love anyone else the way I love him.  I hurt every time I even think about him."

"Then you'd better learn to deal with it on your own and stop giving me this teenage angst crap," said Mrs. Dean.  "Now Louis, get out of here.  You're keeping your sister waiting."

"I don't care!" Tawny screamed.  "Louis and I are engaged.  We're getting married.  Okay?  Forget college, forget everything else, we're going to live together here or somewhere else where we'll be happy!"

"Engaged?" Mrs. Dean repeated.  "Engaged?  What do you think you're talking about?  Do you have an engagement ring?"

Tawny grabbed Louis' wrist and shoved his hand into Mrs. Dean's face.  "I spent all of the money I was saving to buy a car on this.  All of it!  Don't you think that's commitment?"

"Oh, for the love of God, Tawny!" Mrs. Dean yelled.  "No, I don't call it commitment, I call it stupidity.  And do you know what causes it?  Hormones!  You're not really in love with this clown, you just fool yourself into thinking you are because you want someone to love, and you want someone to want you!"

"Shut up!" Tawny shouted, tears streaming down her face.  "Get out of my room!  You don't know what I want!"

"Tawny."  Louis put his arm around Tawny's shoulders.  "Shh."

Tawny nestled her head into Louis' neck and kissed him.

"I'll take you two to the airport when you're ready," Mrs. Dean told Louis in a more even tone.  "You can take as long as you want.  If you miss the flight I'll buy you tickets for the next plane out."

"It's all right," Louis said when Mrs. Dean had left.  "Tawny, what if...what if you come with us?"

"No."  Tawny shook her head.  "Louis, we've discussed this.  Come on.  I don't belong in Michigan."

"Why not?" Louis asked.  "Just for a few years?  I'll get a job.  I'll get some money.  We can move back here, even, once we can afford it."

"It would never work," said Tawny.

"Why?  Tell me why it couldn't."

"I just..."   Tawny turned away.  "I couldn't live with Ren, okay?  It would be like we were all just siblings or something.  I just want it to be us.  Partners.  Soul mates."

"You can't live your dreams right away, Tawny," said Louis.

"I know," said Tawny.  "But, look, I...my parents...I belong here.  And I think you do too.  And I don't want to ruin our relationship by doing something crazy and stupid like moving more than halfway across the country and having to adapt to a whole new situation.  I know it would tear us apart."

"So would a long-distance relationship!" Louis argued.

Tawny kissed him again.  "I know."

Ren entered the room quietly.  "Louis," she said, "it's time to go.  Now."

"Thank you.  I'm okay now," Ren told the gentleman at the airport, shaking her head slightly.  She tried to smile and he backed away and got in line for the line.

Ren joined the line, wheeling her suitcase behind her.  She handed her ticket to one of the flight attendants and glanced briefly toward the gate.  Louis and Tawny were waving to her.  Ren raised her hand back at them in acknowledgement and turned away to board her flight.

"Hey, you ready?" Tom's voice echoed behind Louis and Tawny.

Tawny turned around and playfully punched Tom in the shoulder.  She turned to Louis.  "You ready?"

"Yeah," said Louis, "I think I am."

"Mother's country house is just beautiful," said Tom.  "I think you're really going to love it a lot.  It's two thousand square feet and it's on an acre of land.  Oh, and of course there's the complimentary driver's service that will take you to and from the city anytime you want.  But you will be able to pay for that, won't you?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely," Tawny agreed.  "He's getting a full-time job, and I'll work on weekends until I graduate."

"Excellent," said Tom.  "Well, we mustn't keep Mother waiting.  Come along, comrades."

Tawny slipped her hand into Louis' and smiled excitedly at him.  He brushed a hair out of her face and stroked her cheek, mouthing "I love you."  Tawny mouthed it back to him.

"So how does your mom afford all this stuff?" Tawny wanted to know as Tom led her and Louis outside.

"I'm not really supposed to divulge the information," said Tom, "but it's family money, mostly.  Mother's side of the family is rather affluent."  He chuckled.

"Hey."  Louis turned around as he heard an airplane taking off.  "That's Ren's plane.  It has that weird green sticker design on the side of it, remember?"

"Yeah," said Tawny.  "I hope she writes to us from Michigan."

"Of course she will.  She's Ren," said Louis.

Tom craned his neck to look at the plane.  "It's a beauty," he remarked.

Tawny squeezed Louis' hand.  "It is, you know that?  It really is."

The three of them stood still for a moment and watched the plane disappear into the clouds.

The End!